


She Uses Tangerines

by Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Crack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Infertility, Loss of Virginity, Mon Calamari, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard/pseuds/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Summary: Rey informs Ben that they are adopting a Mon Calamari egg after five years of unsuccessfully trying to conceive.The only things standing between them and the family they have always wanted:Rey doesn't know they've never had sex; andBen doesn't know they're in a romantic relationship.





	1. She Don't Use Jelly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crossingwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/gifts).

> Hello! Infertility and adoption are serious, emotionally-charged issues. This fic does not attempt to grapple with them AT ALL.
> 
> There is no actual pregnancy in this fic but there is a medical setting and the mention of these issues in a very inappropriately jovial way. Send tweet @YTCShepard.

_I know a girl who reminds me of Cher_

_She's always changing the color of her hair_

_She don't use nothing you can buy at the store_

_She likes her hair to be real orange_

_She uses tangerines._

-the Flaming Lips

“We’re expecting,” Rey blurts out as soon as Ben walks through the door, and the emotional force of that expression nearly knocks him off his feet. 

The small quarters they share are lit with decorative pink glow lights, and Ben can smell his favorite stew bubbling on the hot plate. Rey looks pretty- no, she always looks pretty, but tonight she’s got her hair piled up on her head in a complicated arrangement, and her eyes are outlined in kohl.

But really, there was no need for her to do all that just to soften the blow. His world is about to be irrevocably shattered, unless he misunderstands her words, and it doesn’t matter if she’s trying to be gentle about it, unless- 

“You’re expecting…what, exactly?” he asks, even though all he can think is ‘**_who_**?’ Who the hell has gotten Rey with child after five years of mostly happy cohabitation between Ben and Rey at the Jedi Temple (3d ed.)?

Because it sure as fuck wasn’t Ben. 

He stares at her belly under the layers of soft grey robes. It looks the same as it has as long as he’s known her, same as the first day he saw her in the woods of Takodana. She might be too early to show, but how could he have missed something that critical? She spends her days teaching their apprentices, and her nights curled chastely on the other side of the bed. Ben might not be a candidate to have made her pregnant, but he has no concept of who the other half of her ‘we’ might be. 

“Oh!” Rey says, pressing a hand to her stomach. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. No, we’re not pregnant. No. Still. But that’s okay. I figured out how to fix this. I talked to the Mon Calamari community in Dacca when I visited the trading post. They’ve agreed to give us an egg, Ben.” 

Ben’s head is swimming. It’s a relief, of course, that Rey isn’t pregnant. Well, no, not that she’s not pregnant because… 

If she ever… 

If _they _ever…

But who is ‘us’?

Something of his inner torment must show on his face. Hell, his inner torment always goes straight to his face. 

Rey shakes her head. “I’m doing this all wrong. I didn’t want to just blurt this all out when you walked in the door. This is the most important talk we’ll ever have, after all! Come sit down and have dinner. I wanted to make sure you were on board, of course.”

Ben’s more bewildered than when they started, but he lets Rey take him by the hand to lead him to the dinner table. She has changed the subject to the day’s events and the minutiae of running the Temple, but it’s not as though Ben can think of anything else.

“Okay, Rey,” he says softly. “Can we talk about it now? The egg?”

Rey swallows her mouthful of wine, then drains the rest of the glass. She appears to be summoning her courage, twisting her napkin in her lap. 

“I know I should have talked about it with you first, but it just seemed so…Ben, they had such a mild winter. They had more than the usual number of eggs. They weren’t going to even fertilize them, but then I just told Cilghal…”

Her voice trembled a little.

“Told her what,” Ben said, letting his impatience get the better of him.

“I told her I’ve wanted a baby for five years,” Rey said, her eyes watering. “And she offered me an egg.” 

Ben puts a hand on Rey’s shoulder, and she drops her head into his chest. Because that’s what he does when Rey cries. That’s what she does when he cries. They’re really good at doing that for each other, even if they’re maybe not so good at communicating. Because Ben had literally not a single clue that Rey has wanted a baby at all, let alone for the entire time they’ve been on Kamino together. 

“Please say yes, Ben,” she sobs. 

“Yes, what?” Ben asks, not because he would ever tell her no, but because he doesn’t see what he has to do with it. He would have given her a baby if she asked, hell, he would have tried at least, but he doesn’t see what he has to do with it at all.

“Can we adopt an egg? Hatch it as our own?” she begs. 

It keeps coming up, over and over. Who is ‘we?’ Rey and the New Jedi Order? Rey and some unknown lover who has somehow escaped Ben’s notice for five years?

“Who is we?” Ben asks, a little more harshly than he would have liked.

Rey’s mouth drops open. 

“Don’t be like that, Ben,” Rey says, after a moment. “People make families in all kind of ways. And I know you’ll be such a good father. Even if the egg isn’t your own flesh and blood. You’ll see.”

It’s taken him some time, and Ben doesn’t think he’s to blame, given Rey’s loose use of pronouns. But he’s finally coming to understand that Rey, who has been platonically cohabitating with him since they blew up the Supremacy, has decided that he’ll do as a co-parent. To a Mon Calamari egg.

“Our family will finally be complete,” Rey says, tears spilling at last down her cheeks. Her mouth is closing over little hiccupy sobs. Some deep pressure is coming out tonight, and Ben has long since learned that it's best to let it out gently lest things boil over.

Ben doesn’t hate the idea, anyway, so she doesn't have to cry. 

So he brushes the tears off her cheeks with his thumbs and promises her he’ll do his very best. Just like he always has. They have sixteen younglings of various ages under their responsibility at the Temple, and one more to be their very own would be no hardship. 

It’s not until Rey is snoring on the other side of the bed, his big hand gathered in both of hers and tucked below her chin, that it occurs to him to wonder why Rey thought she needed to let him down gently. Why would he think she was pregnant? Ben’s the only adult male of her species on the entire planet, and they’ve never had sex even once. 

* * *

Mornings are the hardest. Both because Ben has time to wonder why Rey doesn’t want him the way he wants her, and because his boner is usually fully-awake and raging against him while Rey spoons him in her sleep. Today Rey is mercifully brief about her morning greetings- she takes his hand and presses it against her cheek before she heads off to the fresher- and he has the opportunity to have a quick wank before she gets back. 

She loves him, he knows this. They are two of the most Force-sensitive people in the Galaxy. He will never again attempt to invade her mind the way he did the day they met, but their feelings are bright and clear whenever they touch. So he gets a daily affirmation of the warm orange glow of Rey’s affection for him. Just as she must know that he-

“Do you think that we should get married now, or wait until the egg is here?” 

Rey comes out of the fresher unexpectedly, a towel wrapped loosely around her body. Ben dives under the covers to conceal his not-yet tamed erection, and only belatedly processes her words. 

“Pardon?” he yelps. 

Rey comes and sits next to him on their bed, running her hand through his curls affectionately. She is so good to him; she rubs his shoulders, and combs his hair, and sometimes she will kiss him with closed lips, the way one does a comrade or close friend. 

This is her first marriage proposal, though. 

“I know we should have talked about it before,” she says. “It didn’t seem like a priority, and I always assumed we’d get around to it if we did fall pregnant. But pair-bonding among the parents is important to the Mon Calamari, and I’m sure we won’t have time once we’re incubating the egg, so should we do that now? Do you think your mother will fly in?”

Ben is positive that his mother would want to fly in if she found out that after five years of running the Temple together, Rey had condescended to wed her problematic son—maybe to talk Rey out of it, if nothing else—but Ben also thinks that Leia would assume that Rey and Ben were getting married because they were in love.

Real love, like Han and Leia had. Not the kind that existed between two Jedi who trained padawans together and for some reason shared a bed and a bunch of meals and apparently a Mon Calamari child, and- 

“Rey, why did you think you’d get pregnant?” Ben finally asks her. “How?”

Rey bites her lip, staring down at her lap.

“It just seemed so easy for everyone else. Finn and Rose were pregnant practically the week after we defeated Palpatine. So I assumed we would be too. Sooner or later. But you know, I never had enough to eat as a kid, maybe that-“

Ben presses a hand to his face. 

“Rey, darling, you know I’d have to be involved too,” he says. He knows that is not entirely true, if the family stories about his grandfather’s conception are true. But waiting for Force-induced parthenogenesis seems inefficient when he is ready, willing, and able. So, so willing. 

Rey presses a hand to her abdomen, not meeting his eyes. 

“I really doubt that’s it. I mean, look at you. You’re so big. Strong. Everything a male is supposed to be. I’m sure the problem is on my end. It’s time for me to accept it. I’ll never bear a child. But that doesn’t matter now! We’re going to be parents anyway.” 

Ben doesn’t even know how to begin to unpack this. Clearly, she wants a baby. He’d be happy to provide the proper inputs. But was she just quitting before they even tried? She just assumes that she can’t conceive, so she won’t try, even to make a baby? 

One thing he’s considered, over the thousand mornings he has woken up next to the love of his life, is that Rey is just not built the way he is. She doesn’t have the same desires. It’s not that she doesn’t want _Ben_. She just doesn’t want anyone…like that. It’s really the most logical conclusion. And it’s not that Ben’s getting some lesser form of her love. He’s got what she has to give. He has far more than he deserves. If she wants a platonic marriage with him and a baby, he’ll do his best to make that happen for her. She deserves nothing less.

“Maybe we should go see a med-droid,” he says. “If you want us to have a baby, there might be other options we should think about.” Options where Rey doesn’t have to let Ben touch her like that. 

He doesn’t think Rey should be writing off her ability to carry her own children without considering whether Ben could still help her. 

Even if it’s just by handing off the results of a morning wank to the med-droid. 

* * *

It takes a while, asking around, before Ben hears of a med-droid with human fertility subroutines. It’s nothing they need at the Temple, with just Rey and Ben and a dozen younglings of various species. There’s a small droid which can handle the various lacerations and ailments that afflict children, but they will have to travel several klicks away via speeder to find a community with enough transit to bother programming obstetrics, gynecology, and endocrinology into their doc-in-a-bot. 

Rey is impatient, unwilling to waste more time now that she has decided on a course of action, and Ben can tell that she is mostly humoring him by going. She doesn’t think much of science’s ability to discern the mysteries of human conception. She's waited on the Force, and if the Force says it is not meant to be, she will move on. 

But Ben doesn’t think she is even 30 standards old, and he- well, he has his own dreams. 

_A wizened Cerean medical assistant emerges from the lab, holding aloft a jar of Ben’s spunk as though it were a holy relic._

_“This- this is the most potent sample I have ever handled! The motility…the numerosity…the midichlorians!” _

_He puts it in Rey’s hand. _

_“My girl, this is a precious gift. A true elixir of life.”_

_“Do you really think so?” Rey asks doubtfully. “This is all I’ve been missing?”_

_“Nature provides the most effective delivery mechanism. I prescribe multiple bouts of vigorous human coitus.”_

_“Well, if Ben doesn’t mind…”_

_“Oh, anything for you, my darling…”_

Ben terminates that train of thought, because he is clinging to Rey’s back as they travel to the clinic on speeder. Rey may be naïve, but she will surely notice his erection poking her in the kidneys. 

At the clinic, most of the couples in the waiting room are not even humanoid. There are three kubaz in the corner, whistling to each other in low tones, and for all Ben knows that is how many kubaz are required for kubaz reproduction. 

Rey pats his knee comfortingly as they take a seat next to a holo-display of a popular Twi’lek soap opera. As though he’s the one this appointment could disappoint.

The attendant calls Rey’s name, and she gives Ben a tight smile before vanishing down the hall. Ben’s turn comes several minutes later when a Sullustan nurse leads him to a door that is succinctly labeled “ejaculation closet.” 

“I’ll be back for a sample in five to ten minutes,” the nurse tells Ben before turning to go. 

“Hey!” Ben protests. 

The Sullustan purses thick lips and assesses Ben. “Sure, guy, prove me wrong,” he tells Ben dismissively. 

With that resounding vote of confidence, Ben is left alone with a glass jar and a mission.

The closet is barely big enough for him to sit down in, but he supposes all he will need is the ancient holo-projector on the opposite wall and his trusty right hand. 

He flicks through the pornography options and finds them lacking. It’s not like he’s picky or a smut connoisseur—he’s fairly certain he hasn’t watched any since burning down the Jedi Temple (2d ed.)—but he’s not going to get hard watching a Ssi-ruuk mating tangle. 

He finally finds an option labeled “human” and settles down with his pants open. At first, Ben thinks the vid is miscategorized. The actresses twining around each other are Twi’leks, not humans, and Ben knows that not all human males find their ovipositors attractive. He’s one of that group of not all men, in fact, and he moves to flip back to the main menu when he notices the seam around one Twi’lek’s lekku, and then a splotchy makeup job on the second’s breasts.

And that just puts him off it entirely. He’s not about to risk conceiving a child while watching blueface pornography--bad blueface pornography much less. There are a lot of bad origin stories in his family tree. He doesn’t need to add to them in this closet. 

So he switches off the projector entirely and thinks about Rey. Normally he’d feel guilty about letting his fantasies feature her so explicitly, but since almost all children of whatever species are conceived while their parents think dirty things about each other, he finally feels that he has earned a permission slip to imagine bending Rey over their breakfast table and feeding each inch of his cock into her ripe pink cunt.

Because he’s seen it, that’s the worst thing. Rey has almost no concept of bodily modesty and will regularly walk through their little home naked. He can summon, via his Jedi training, the exact placement of every freckle on her breasts. He knows the color of the tuft of fur between her legs (and the ones beneath her arms, because Chandrilan grooming standards did not penetrate Jakku low society and Ben would never). 

It’s not hard for him to imagine what Rey would be like, if he ever fucked her. Because don’t they fight? And don’t they cuddle? And don’t they know each other, every thing two people can ever know about each other?

It doesn’t take him long, thinking like that, to come in the glass jar. Thinking of Rey’s cunt wrapping around him, instead of his fist. It’s probably less than ten minutes.

Still, the Sullustan is waiting for him, arms crossed, when Ben emerges.

To his surprise, the nurse does not lead him back to the waiting room, but to a row of examination chambers.

“Your partner just got back from the lab. The med-droid is about to conduct the physical exam,” the nurse tells him, waving his tablet at the door.

“Oh, I ah- I’m not sure I need to be there for-“ Ben says. 

“Nice try,” the nurse says. “This’ll be nothing compared to the birth. Humans!” 

And so Ben doesn’t even really have a choice about going in. Rey, thankfully, is still dressed above the waist, and a large paper drape covers her below. She’s alone, but she’s already got her feet up in some kind of metal rigging. 

Ben skitters as far as possible from the business end of the proceedings as the small room allows. 

“I’m really over this,” she says. The table she is lying on is barely padded, and the room is air conditioned fair below a comfortable level for their species. 

“Nothing terrible, right?” he asks. 

“Usually when I have to shed blood, someone else sheds more,” Rey grouses, shifting on the table. “Did they take blood from you too?”

“Uh, not quite,” Ben equivocates, but before he can explain what kind of fluids _he _gave, the med-droid is opening the door and wheeling in. 

“Greetings, infertile human couple,” it tells them in a disconcertingly basso voice, considering that its profile resembles a Thala Siren. “I am J-N0M, and I am here to fix you.” 

“Actually, I’m not sure that we-“ Ben begins to explain. 

“Your gametes are adequate,” the droid cuts him off with a curt waive of a speculum attachment. “I do not require other inputs from you.” 

Adequate? Adequate? Ben is in fantastic shape, he eats well, he doesn’t drink alcohol or engage in other bad habits. His swimmers are certainly better than _adequate._

But he doesn’t protest, because the med-droid is beginning to poke and prod at Rey’s abdomen with various bits of its instrumentation, and Rey is reaching back to grab his forearm with a bone-bending grip. 

The droid presses against her stomach with a blunt wand until Ben can see Rey wince, and he is ready to call the entire thing off and simply procure the nearest child of whatever species for Rey. 

“Human physiology within normal limits,” the med-droid reports. “How often do you engage in coitus?” 

Ben shuffles his feet, because this is where the conversation is going to get awkward for Rey. And she shouldn’t have to explain that she- 

“Twice a day, most days. Maybe three times, if it’s a weekend?” Rey reports.

And Ben’s mouth drops open. She doesn’t have to _lie _to cover for him. It’s not like he has a reputation to protect. And misleading the med-droid could cause his assessment to be inaccurate, which would be-

“On the high end of adequate,” the med-droid pronounces, after a pause to examine its memory files. “A physical examination is required.”

Rey grits her teeth and sighs through them.

“Have you never had one of these before?” Ben whispers. He can vaguely recall his mother meeting with a specialty droid at several points in his childhood. 

“Jakku’s public health system left something to be desired,” Rey hisses, grabbing his sleeve harder and tugging him even closer to the examination. The room smells like antiseptic and cold metal, and Ben is positive that no life begins in these conditions. 

But J-N0M’s flashlight head has barely dipped below the sheet covering Rey's pelvis before it pops back up again.

“Anomaly detected,” it says, looking balefully at Ben. “Human female still _virgo intacta_. Inspection of human male physiology indicated.” It replaces the sheet over Rey’s lap and dips its probes a sterilizing solution. Rey mouths its words with an expression of concern. 

Next, it begins to roll towards Ben, instrumentalities extended. 

Ben takes a quick step backward, wishing he had brought his lightsaber. He does not plan to submit to inspection. 

Rey is still registering the droids’ words.

“But that’s- that’s impossible,” Rey says. “And how could you possibly tell that by looking down there?” She sounds honestly befuddled, which only makes Ben more confused.

“Look here,” Ben says, dodging a pincer that goes for his shirtfront, “there is nothing wrong with my physiology.”

“Malformation in male gamete depositor has not been ruled out. 10% probability in complete sexual dysfunction.”

“There is no sexual dysfunction,” Ben finally growls. “_We’re not having any sex_!” 

There is a long silence, which Ben would have characterized as pregnant were the adjective not so inappropriate to the situation in which they found themselves. Rey looks at Ben. Ben looks at Rey. The droid thinks so hard its ocular lanterns dim. 

“This droid is not programmed with human psychiatric routines,” J-N0M finally says. 

Ben makes a noise in the back of his throat that evokes a wounded fathier. 

“It’s not a problem. Not a physical problem. Not a psychiatric problem. We’re just not having any sex, and we need to find out if Rey can still have a baby,” he says, trying to keep his temper. It’s been so long since he smashed anything in anger, and yet he feels in danger of falling back into bad habits. This was a terrible idea.

“But that’s- that’s not true,” Rey says. “We do it all the time. Why would you say that?” Her voice sounds tremulous and confused, and he takes several steps over to put his hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s okay…” he says softly. 

“No, Ben, it’s not okay. What do you think we’ve been doing, if not…that?” she demands, and he honestly has no idea what she means.

“Please describe your typical method of non-procreative intercourse,” the droid says, and Ben is now just positive that it thinks that he is putting it up the butt. His cheeks are redder than the quillions on his lightsaber. Rey answers for him. 

“Okay, this is really embarrassing to do with someone else in the room, but just…like this,” Rey says, taking his hand in hers. Ben stares at her. 

“Sometimes like this,” she says, changing up her grip so that just their fingertips are touching. 

“Or if we’re really tired, just like this,” she says, holding his hand in a loose grip.

Ben makes that dying fathier noise again. 

“I mean, I reach orgasm every time,” Rey says, peering up at Ben’s face. “Don’t you, darling?”


	2. I Know A Guy Who Goes to Shows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tags say loss of virginityyy.

It’s been a long time since Ben has panicked and blown something up with the Force to cover his retreat. Here in the exam room though, as the med-droid begins to explain the explicit details of human sexual behavior to Ben’s increasingly horrified fiancee…it feels good. Feels right. 

Ben snaps off the probe the droid was hoping to biopsy his prostate with and pulls down the cinderblock wall to the exterior. Before Rey has a chance to ask any further questions about the way that every other human couple in the galaxy does it, Ben has her bundled onto her speeder and headed off to Dacca.

“I do not think that droid had the experience the clinic was billing us for. I’m recommitting to this adoption idea,” Ben tells her. 

“Are you sure-“ 

“Absolutely. I should have listened to you in the first place.”

“Well that’s true,” she agrees. 

Usually she does not let him drive, but she’s quiet in his arms this morning as he guides them as quickly as he can out of the environs of the cursed medical clinic. 

But he can’t avoid the subject forever.

“Ben, have you done…that stuff the droid mentioned?”

Ben grits his teeth and grinds them. He had long since thought he would never have to have this discussion with Rey.

“A few times. A very, very long time ago,” he confesses. 

“Oh,” Rey says. 

The area the Mon Calamari have colonized is swampy, with thick underbrush hiding deep, hidden channels leading to the sea. It is unattractive to mammals, and there is nobody else on the dirt track to overhear them. 

“But why?” Rey asks, finally. “For…procreation?” 

Decidedly not. It’s been nearly twenty years, and Ben can barely remember the girl’s name or face, but he can recall being very determined that no procreation would occur. 

“No, Rey, never. I’ve never wanted that with anyone but you.” 

She is quiet again, but he can tell that she is pleased by that answer.

“So, is it better? Than the way we do it?”

“Ahhh,” Ben temporizes. “Just…very different." 

Ben gnaws the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper. 

“You know, it’s hard to put into words. I know you said you were…coming. When we touch hands. Which is really great. But Rey, do you think you could describe how you feel? Just for comparison’s sake," he finally responds. 

Rey tips her head back on his shoulder.

“Well, I know you feel it too. But it’s this warm sense of connection. Love. Oneness in the Force. It’s the best thing in the world,” she tells him. 

And that’s exactly how he feels too when they touch. But while he’s not an expert on the female orgasm by any means, he vaguely recalls that less metaphysical peace and more vaginal contractions were involved.

“Maybe we could try it the other way. Someday,” Ben suggests, because this is the only opening he’s had in five years to talk about it. 

“I guess we can try it,” Rey says. “Shake things up.”

“Uh huh,” Ben says, trying not to sound too eager.

“Really you should have mentioned this years ago. That there are…other positions,” Rey says. 

In retrospect, he really, really should have.

“Well, I didn’t know that you didn’t know,” he says grumpily. 

“But you knew I was from Jakku. And you’re a lot older than me. And, apparently, a lot more experienced.”

Look, a few fumbled experiences in the Temple basement during the Jedi summer outreach program did not make him experienced. 

“I didn’t realize you wanted me to tell you. Show you,” he confesses. “I didn’t think that you were interested in me that way.” 

He nearly falls off the speeder when Rey twists the brakes. The ancient, rusting machine kicks up a few times before coming to a shuddering halt in the center of the tidal swamp surrounding the Mon Calamari settlement.

Rey twists around on the speeder until they are facing each other, knees touching. 

“In what way?” she asks, peering up at him with deep concern.

In the way where people end up having children together, Ben thinks. His lower lip pouts, and Rey reaches up and frames his face with her two hands. 

“You big dummy,” she says. “I want you in every way.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” he repeats petulantly.

“We live together,” Rey points out. 

“We’re Jedi,” he responds. 

“I love you,” she says with vehemence.

“And I thought that was in a platonic way,” he says, embarrassed now and ready for the conversation to be over. Maybe the clues were there in retrospect. He still doesn’t think he should be blamed for not figuring it out. 

“Because you’re a big dummy?” 

“Because I asked you to marry me and you said no,” he throws down. Rey blinks a few times, her nose crinkling in confusion, as she attempts to place the moment in her memory. 

“Oh, for-“ Rey waves her hands in the air. “That was not a proposal. You didn’t have a ring. You had half a dozen dismembered bodies and an invasion plan.” 

“You said no,” he says, even though he knows he sounds childish. 

“I said let’s do something else instead,” she says, more gently. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chin until he leans forward to put his lips against her hairline. 

“I’m with you, Ben,” she mumbles against his collarbone. “And if you want to do it without our hands, I’ll give it a try.”

* * *

The Mon Calamari settlement is like an iceberg: there are a few spires and guard posts above-ground, but the bulk of it is underwater and underground, cut into the channel’s banks. Cilghal meets them in a sleekly minimalist antechamber, looking sophisticated and ageless in long woven silver robes. Her foreclaws are tipped with long amethyst dagger-points, which she undulates as she considers the two of them. She peers at Ben through one garnet eye, then the other. 

Ben has known that she lives here, of course, but he’s made excuses to send Rey on any business the Temple has with the Mon Calamari. He tries to avoid people he knew as a child, even though he knows that avoidance is hardly appropriately contrite Jedi behavior. As children, he and Cilghal had reenacted Luke’s assault on the Death Star beneath his mother’s dining room table while Cilghal’s uncle plotted galactic peace with Leia. He hasn’t seen her since Leia sent him away. 

After a few seconds of wary circling, Cilghal whacks him affectionately on the shoulder with a foreclaw, and Ben tries not to wince. She’s still as tall as he is.

“You know, I used to think we’d be the ones getting married,” Cilghal tells him in her high-pitched, fluting voice. 

It has been a day of revelations, and yet Ben had not expected that one.

“What, I…_really_?” he squawks. Rey covers her grin with her hand. Clighal’s gills flap in amusement. 

“Oh yes. Uncle Ackbar used to threaten to sell me into dynastic marriage if I didn’t behave,” Cilghal continues. “I thought that meant you. It was a good threat. You were not a handsome little boy. So few fingers.” 

Ben does not have a good response to that one, because he’s always felt that he had the appropriate number of fingers, but luckily Rey bails him out and confirms a lengthy list of incubation protocols. Ben looks around the room, wondering if their egg is somewhere near.

“I’ve picked out a good one for you,” Cilghal tell Rey, gesturing to them both to follow her into a glass elevator leading further into the complex. “I laid it myself last week.”

“That’s so- I didn’t know you’d be giving up one of your own children,” Rey says.

Cilghal wiggles her elbow fin in a Mon Calamari gesture of negation.

“An egg only…it will be up to you to hatch a child. And all of us spawned this year. We had such a big harvest. It was spawn or buy bigger clothes.” She pats her shoulders, presumably the area which female Mon Calamari find problematic after too many rich dinners.

“The parenting couples are down fertilizing the eggs this week. Will the two of you be participating in the fertilization ceremony? I can have the egg sent to the Temple later, if not.”

Rey says ‘yes’ at the same time Ben says ‘no.’ 

After a very trying morning, the last thing Ben wants to do is find out what a Mon Calamari fertilization ceremony entails. He wants to take Rey home and start exploring methods of copulation that involve removing more than his gloves. 

Rey is staring at him as though she wants him to read her mind. Of course, he knows how to actually read her mind, but he’s promised never to do that again, so he has to think about what he’s done wrong this time.

He supposes that skipping his egg’s first ceremony does not bode well for his performance as a parent. His parents missed a lot of important moments. More in the nature of lost teeth and school plays than conception—they’d definitely both been present for his conception--

Ben lifts his eyebrows and attempts to convey to Rey without using the Force that if their egg is not yet fertilized, it will surely not remember their lack of attendance, but Rey sticks out her chin mulishly and crosses her arms. Her little booted foot taps the marble floor. 

“We would like to attend the ceremony,” Ben finally says.

* * *

The term “ceremony” had led Ben to picture something more…ceremonial. The Mon Calamari are a people of great dignity and deliberate movement. Ben imagined Mon Calamari couples in robes like Cilghal’s, dipping the eggs in…something. Maybe chanting. Ben was fairly certain Luke had made up most of the “Jedi” rituals to keep him busy as a teenager, but they had all involved varying degrees of chanting, robes, and a few hand-waves for punctuation.

This is not that.

This is…

“Is this an orgy?” Rey asks with interest. 

Mon Calamari in multiples of two are grouped around a vast underground chamber of natural stone intersected by shallow streams of running water. At the center of the chamber, there is a small pool containing a pile of reddish-orange spheres the size of Ben’s fists put together. Ben tries hard to look at the eggs, because every time his eyes focus on a pile of Mon Calamari flopping and thrusting and occasionally emitting in the general direction of the eggs, Ben feels as though his brain forms an abscess in the area of the new visual. 

Ben chokes a little and tries to walk backwards to the elevator, dragging Rey along with him where his arm is looped around her elbow. Rey digs in her heels and does not allow him to escape. 

“Rey, I would do almost anything for you, but group sex with the Mon Calamari is a hard limit for me,” Ben says.

“Oh hush,” Rey murmurs. “We don’t have to stay and participate. I just want to get a good idea what’s going on in case our child ever asks about it.”

Ben opens his mouth to remark that as someone who grew up with two parents, he knows that their child is guaranteed to never ask about the circumstances of his or her or their conception, but he cannot manage to express that thought without raising some very thorny issues for both himself and Rey. So he closes his mouth and attempts to meditate on the Force. 

The Mon Calamari come in over a dozen beautiful colors, from moon-white to reddish-gold to glossy black. If Ben lets his eyes unfocus, he can even appreciate the aesthetics of the scene. The Galaxy considers the Mon Calamari as a species to be one of the more universally attractive races, and the aerodynamics of their bodies are easier to appreciate when they’re disrobed. It’s the minor details that bother him, the ones that- 

“Rey. What are you doing,” Ben grits out. Rey has pressed her hip up against his and is gently patting down his stomach with her opposite hand. 

“Just comparing,” she says innocently. Ben’s head spins.

“You’ve seen me without a shirt on. Dozens of times! You know I don’t have…_claspers_.”

Rey doesn’t need to point out that neither of them knew that the Mon Calamari _did _have claspers, and a dizzying array of other sexual organs to externalize under the right conditions. Rey’s narrow hand continues its gentle exploration, reassuring her that Ben’s stomach is flat and free of secondary reproductive systems. But Ben’s back, at least, goes rigid when her hand moves lower. 

“Urk,” Ben says with his usual elegance. 

“Well, then what _do _you have?” Rey asks. She’s probably not going to be too impressed, because Ben’s junk is trying to pull back inside his body at the moment, but her hand is very delicately tracing the outline of his balls now.

Her hand cups him, and finally his cock gives a half-hearted twitch. He’s never going to get hard in a room full of copulating aliens, but Rey’s interest in exploring what lies beneath his pants is giving him a new lease on life. 

“I thought you’d never ask,” Ben says. “And if you’ll go home now, I’d be happy to show you.” 

* * *

The ride back to the Jedi Temple is quiet. Ben has a large, heavy box containing their egg, 15 liters of salt water, and an automatic blower to balance on his lap while Rey pilots the speeder home. And once they get home, Rey has to check in on the younglings while Ben adjusts the atmospheric controls in their bathtub and secures their egg. 

Their egg is transparent and jewel-like at this stage in its development. The shell won’t harden and turn opaque for several more months. Still, Ben can sense a faint pulse of life deep within it. A small beat in the Force. 

“Hello,” he tells it. Ben pauses, as though waiting for an answer. He feels a little silly, but he’s looked worse today. He clears his throat. 

“I guess…I’m your father now.” It sounds very unlikely. He can only imagine the doubts the tiny Mon Calamari will have when it hatches and is asked to imprint on two beige beings with tiny eyes and not enough fingers. He swallows again. 

“I’ll try not to fuck this up, and you’ll try not to kill me, okay?” he whispers, peering down at it. "Deal?" 

“Don’t swear in front of the egg,” Rey says behind him. 

Ben gets off his knees and turns to look at her.

She has her hair down and brushed out, and she has shed all her layers down to a breastband and her leggings. 

“The bedroom, right?” she asks. He nods and follows her, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. She has begun to shuck her remaining clothing, and she’s nude before she sits on the edge of the bed to cross her ankles and watch him. 

He’s still fully dressed in his layers of grey robes. But he unbuckles his belt and steps out of his boots, and Rey stands to push his robe off his shoulders and help him pull his shirt over his head. 

He takes another deep breath and undoes the catches on his trousers. He would be a little bit coy about it, but Rey is not a sentimental person about such things, and she shoves his pants down towards his knees. 

He sucks in his stomach to prepare for her assessment, ready to pull his pants back up and leave the room if she’s shocked, but- 

“Oh, you have an ovipositor too,” she says. 

Ben chokes, all the saliva that was pooling in his mouth vanishing down his throat and into his lungs.

“It’s not-“

“Just like the Twi’leks do,” she says helpfully.

“It’s actually different from- wait, have you seen Twi’lek pornography?” 

“Of course I have. I grew up in a spaceport.” 

Ben covers his face with his two palms and tries to teach his lungs to breathe again.

His cock doesn’t mind if she calls it an ovipositor. It’s just happy to be out and the subject of conversation. 

“So if it’s not for depositing eggs, what’s it for?” Rey asks, leaning forward and bracing herself against his hip to get a closer look. 

“It’s a little bit like an ovipositor,” Ben admits. 

Rey looks down her own body skeptically, searching for a corresponding slot (located directly above the navel, for Twi'leks) and not finding one. 

“Where?” she asks. 

“People do different things,” Ben temporizes, allowing his gaze to follow the line of her body.

“Show me?” Rey says.

“Ah,” Ben says, trying to think past the pounding of blood in his head and in his balls. Five years ago he told her that she needed a teacher and now they’re finally getting around to it. “You would need to touch me, first.”

He jumps when Rey wraps a palm around the head of his cock and squeezes. Hard. He yelps. 

Rey promptly jerks her hand back. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it delicate?” she asks. 

Ben wraps his own hand around himself to soothe away the sting, and sighs at the immediate pleasure of it. He’s been jerking off in the shower almost every morning for years, and it’s so much better to just not be alone. 

“I was just surprised,” Ben says. He steps forward, leaning over her. He presses her shoulder until she lies back on the bed, her feet still flat on the floor. “I do want you to touch me there.”

“With my hands?” Rey clarifies. 

“If that’s what you like.” 

“And what else?” 

Ben lets his gaze fall over her. Her breasts are small and round, tipped with dusty rose peaks. Her stomach and hips are corded with muscle under soft, freckled skin. There are shadows along her collarbone and between her thighs that he wants to trace with his tongue.

“Here,” Ben says, pressing two fingers to her lower lip. He trails his fingers down between her breasts. “Here.” They travel over her navel and down between her legs. Her cleft is soft and warm and not yet wet. “Here.” Further back, where she is firm and puckered. “Here too,” he confesses.

Rey’s eyes are wide and wondering. “Humans do all that?”

“Some of them do,” he says firmly.

“For….reproductive purposes?” she whispers.

Ben shakes his head. “Mostly no. For fun. To feel close to each other. To relax,” he tells her. “Lots of reasons.” 

Rey looks a little dubious. 

“Do you have…more?” she asks, nodding at his cock, which is now stiff and aching in his hand. 

“More?” Ben asks, feeling a twinge of self-consciousness. He thought he was big for a human man, or at least proportionate to his height. It was the same size as it had always been, right? It couldn’t possibly have gotten _smaller_… 

“More than one of those,” she clarifies. “I mean, that’s a lot of places. How do you…”

Ben finally leans in to cover his lips with hers. He’s never going to be able to explain this to her and remain sane. 

“Mrff,” Rey says, pressing at his shoulders until Ben stops kissing her. “I mean it. I don’t think I can…is there any way to do just one at a time?”

“Yes darling,” he breathes against her lips. “We’ll do just one at a time.”

* * *

Rey seems pleasantly surprised to discover that Ben’s hands feel nice in many places other than her palms. She shivers when he puts them over her breasts, catching her nipples in the gaps between his fingers and pulling at them. She sighs when they spread against her shoulder blades. She gasps when they sweep over her inner thighs. 

The only thing she even begins to object to is Ben’s attempt to slip his tongue between her lips once he is pressed against her on the bed. 

“This is the Star Wars Universe, Ben,” she says, turning her head away. “People don’t kiss with their tongues.” 

“Fair,” Ben says, pulling back. “But can I use my tongue other places?”

He demonstrates by sucking the lobe of her ear into his mouth, and she indicates that she finds that agreeable. If the noises she’s making are any indication, she also likes it when he lays a line of kisses down her neck, and sucks on the place where it meets her shoulder. 

“Does it feel like this when we touch hands,” Ben whispers into her skin before sucking a firm little nipple into his touch.

“Mrf- sometimes,” Rey says, her hips bucking a little. 

Ben swirls his tongue around her breast, sampling the different textures against his lips. Hard and satin and soft. Rey makes soft little noises until he pinches her other nipple between two fingers. 

“It feels like this?” he asks. 

“A little,” she gaps.

So he shimmies further down her body, pausing to thrust his tongue into her navel, making her hips come entirely off the bed. Which just means that he gets to pin them down again with one palm over each hipbone. 

She doesn’t resist when he pulls her thighs apart and looks between them. He’s pleased to note that female human anatomy does not appear to have evolved in the past two decades, and he knows his way around as well as he ever did, which is to say with only passing familiarity. 

“I did wonder,” Rey says, shivering when he huffs out a warm breath over her core. 

“Wonder what?” Ben asks, tentatively running his nose along the edge of one of her folds. 

“The connection. Between the hand. And here.”

“I’m not sure there is one,” Ben tells her before sucking one of her ripe lips between his own. 

She tastes like the sea in Chandrila. Salt and sunshine.

She is small and delicate here, and he is big and clumsy. Her opening is a tiny thing, gripping his fingertip with unexpected strength when he runs one through her folds.

It will be the work of days to open her up, and Ben relishes the challenge. He spreads her legs open further and hooks her knees over his shoulders. 

Her clit is exposed for only a moment to his gaze before he covers it with his mouth. Begins to lick around it, listening to her breathe to find out what she likes.

“Do you ever do this?” he asks.

“How could I? I’m not that flexible,” Rey laughs. “Is there anyone who can do this on her own? Does she ever leave her house?” 

Ben chokes back a laugh. “No, I mean with your hands.” He rubs along the side of her clit with one thumb to demonstrate. 

Her eyes widen. “No, but that’s a…that’s a great idea.”

And Ben can almost weep over the time they’ve lost, even as he’s slightly mollified that they haven’t been separately fapping to each other the entire time. 

He sucks her clit between his lips again, trying to slide one of his fingers inside her. But then he feels Rey’s hand patting against his shoulder reaching for his arm—and then he realizes that she wants a hand on hers. 

It’s only when he has one hand clenched with hers, and the other pressed against her cunt, that he feels her body shake against his. He presses his finger as deeply inside her as he can and feels her pussy grip it as she comes. He thinks that the way that she gasps his name as she comes is the most satisfying sexual experience of his life. 

He kisses the soft rise of her lower belly when her thighs slide apart and then rolls to a seated position on the floor. Rey’s lower legs are still dangling over the edge of the bed, and he wraps one hand around her ankle. 

“Okay, that’s not like holding hands. Very much,” her voice pronounces from up on the bed.

Ben can only nod in agreement. His cock is throbbing for lack of attention, and Ben has to squeeze it firmly at the base. 

Rey probably wouldn’t mind if he took care of things. It might answer a few more of her questions, in fact. He’s got a bottle of lube in the nightstand, and he can use the Force to bring it to him without even getting up… 

Rey’s head pops over the edge of the bed, looking down at him.

“What happens next? How is your ovi-“

“It’s a penis, Rey, not an ovipositor,” he grits out. 

“What do we do with your p-“

“Actually, don’t call it that either. Call it a cock,” he says, pulling over the lube and spreading some over the tip.

“With your whatever-it-is!” Rey says, exasperated. “I could do that, at least.” 

Ben holds his breath for a moment. 

“You could,” he agrees. Before he can struggle to his feet, Rey is clambering down and into his lap, straddling his knees. She wraps both hands around his cock, using a butterfly-light pressure until he covers her hands with his own and shows her the grip he likes. 

“And is this like holding hands, to you?” she whispers. Her thighs are so soft over his, and her breasts are only inches from his mouth. 

“Just a little. Just because you’re close,” he breathes, and she presses her lips briefly against his.

She lets go of him to press both hands onto his shoulders and lever her body closer to him. 

Ben stares down at her breasts as he cups his balls in one hand and twists the other hand down the shaft. He imagines painting her stomach and cunt with his spend, using his fingers to push it inside her, licking it out again. It’s a good little plan, and one he’s moving rapidly towards when Rey lowers her body against him.

The head of his cock rubs against her slit, and his eyes widen in surprise.

“Rey wait-“ he says in a choked voice. 

“This is the right place, right?” she asks. “One of them?” 

She is restlessly rubbing herself against the tip of his cock, the wet of her prior orgasm devastating against him. 

“I should tell you more about it, I think it can hurt the first time-“

“It doesn’t hurt,” she breathes, catching his cock against her entrance and sliding forward an inch. 

Ben buries his face in her shoulder. He doesn’t want to see her expression if it does start to hurt. And it feels too good for him to stop her as she twists her hips back and forth, trying to take him in further. 

“Oh, it’s…I can feel you everywhere, Ben,” she gasps.

And that’s all it takes for him. He’s coming before she’s even all the way down. He wraps his arms around her and shudders as he comes and comes, the pressure in his spine and balls releasing in a surge of pleasure. Rey digs her fingernails into his shoulders and holds on tight. 

She doesn’t want to move off of him when he’s done, and he can’t bear to disentangle his body from hers, even though every nerve ending between his abdomen and his knees is firing in exasperation and disused muscles are complaining. Rey brushes the hair from his face and kisses him again briefly. 

Ben leans his nose against her cheek. He has everything in the world that he’s ever wanted.

“Which one comes next?” Rey asks. Ben can barely crack his eyes open to see what she’s talking about.

“The breasts, right? That only makes sense.” She presses her breasts together with both hands, then lets them go to grab the lube from where it has fallen next to Ben. 

“Or is it mouth next, then tits?”

Ben’s cock is beginning to rally, but his brain is having trouble catching up.

Rey’s expression is very serious. “It does seem like my ass should be last. I think we’ll need to work our way up to that one.” 

Ben very much agrees. 

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he says, flipping her hair back over her shoulder and running his hands over her bare skin. 

“Good,” Rey says, squirting some lube into her palm and running it between her breasts. “Do you think the whole thing will take more than an hour? I’m starting to get hungry. Or can we take breaks?”

“We…breaks?” Ben asks. 

“Here,” Rey says, touching her lips, “here,” she cups her breasts, “here- did that already-“ she runs her fingers between her legs, “then here,” she reaches further back, an expression of deep concentration on her face. “That’s sex, right?” 

Ben bites his lower lip. He’s widely considered a villain. Most of the galaxy doesn’t believe in his redemption. The dark side of the Force calls to him every day of his life. He’s been holding hands with his fiancée for five years with absolutely no complaints. 

“Yes, that’s absolutely right,” Ben tells her, reaching up to cup her breasts again. “That’s sex.” 

Rey never finds out otherwise. Even after they hatch three more eggs together. 


End file.
